go to Lokeren.

On the way we came up with the Lamberts in their scouting-car. They
asked me to get out of the Ambulance car and come with them. On the
whole, after this morning, it looked as if the scouting-car promised
better incident. So I threw in my lot with the Lamberts.

It was a little disappointing, for no sooner had the Ambulance car got
clean away than the scouting-car broke down. Also Mr. Lambert stated
that it was not his intention to take Mrs. Lambert into the German lines
again to-day if he could possibly help it.

We waited for an exasperating twenty minutes while the car got righted.
From our street, in a blue transparent sky, so high up that it seemed
part of the transparency, we saw a Taube hanging over Ghent. People came
out of their houses and watched it with interest and a kind of amiable
toleration.

At last we got off; and the scouting-car made such good running that we
came up with our Ambulance in a small town half-way between Ghent and
Lokeren. We stopped here to confer with the Belgian Army Medical
officers. They told us it was impossible to go on to Lokeren. Lokeren
was now in the hands of the Germans. The wounded had been brought into a
small village about two miles away.

When we got into the village we were told to go back at once, for the
Germans were coming in. The Commandant answered that we had come to
fetch the wounded and were certainly not going back without them. It
seemed that there were only four wounded, and they had been taken into
houses in the village.

We were given five minutes to get them out and go.

I suppose we stayed in that village quite three-quarters of an hour.

It was one straight street of small houses, and beyond the last house
about a quarter of a mile of flat road, a quiet, grey road between tall,
slender trees, then the turn. And behind the turn the Germans were
expected to come in from Lokeren every minute.

And we had to find the houses and the wounded men.

The Commandant went into the first house and came out again very
quickly.

The man in the room inside was dead.

We went on up the village.

Down that quiet road and through the village, swerving into the rough,
sandy track that fringed the paved street, a battery of Belgian
artillery came clattering in full retreat. The leader turned his horse
violently into a side alley and plunged down it. I was close behind the
battery when it turned; I could see the faces of the men. They had not